ked down at her. 'Mrs.
Berrington has made such an amusing request of him.'

'An amusing request?'

'She made him promise not to come back.'

'Made him promise----?' Laura stared.

'She asked him--as a particular favour to her--not to join us again. And
he said he wouldn't.'

'Ah, the monster!' Laura exclaimed, blushing crimson.

'Do you mean poor Mr. Booker?' Mr. Wendover asked. 'Of course he had to
assure her that the wish of so lovely a lady was law. But he doesn't
understand!' laughed the young man.

'No more do I. And where is the lovely lady?' said Laura, trying to
recover herself.

'He hasn't the least idea.'

'Isn't she with Lady Ringrose?'

'If you like I will go and see.'

Laura hesitated, looking down the curved lobby, where there was nothing
to see but the little numbered doors of the boxes. They were alone in
the lamplit bareness; the _finale_ of the act was ringing and booming
behind them. In a moment she said: 'I'm afraid I must trouble you to put
me into a cab.'

'Ah, you won't see the rest? _Do_ stay--what difference does it make?'
And her companion still held open the door of the box. Her eyes met his,
in which it seemed to her that as well as in his voice there was
conscious sympathy, entreaty, vindication, tenderness. Then she gazed
into the vulgar corridor again; something said to her that if she should
return she would be taking the most important step of her life. She
considered this, and while she did so a great burst of applause filled
the place as the curtain fell. 'See what we are losing! And the last act
is so fine,' said Mr. Wendover. She returned to her seat and he closed
the door of the box behind them.

Then, in this little upholstered receptacle which was so public and yet
so private, Laura Wing passed through the strangest moments she had
known. An indication of their strangeness is that when she presently
perceived that while she was in the lobby Lady Ringrose and her
companion had quite disappeared, she observed the circumstance without
an exclamation, holding herself silent. Their box was empty, but Laura
looked at it without in the least feeling this to be a sign that Selina
would now come round. She would never come round again, nor would she
have gone home from the opera. That was by this time absolutely definite
to the girl, who had first been hot and now was cold with the sense of
what Selina's injunction to poor Mr. Booker exactly meant. It was worthy
of her,